Our Reaction To The Week That Was In Fantasy Football, Rendered in GIFs

So you’re tired of hearing about the Fantasy players, huh? You wanna hear about the actual players doing the actual blocking, tackling, catching, running, throwing, sacking, intercepting and Tebowing?

Fine.

You would think, 11 games into a NFL season, that surprises would be in short supply. Aside from injuries (more on those in a second), most of us feel like we have a pretty good grip on who’s valuable and who isn’t, who’s worked his way onto the field and who hasn’t, etc. Then, of course, Justin Blackmon has the game of his freaking life (thus far), and the true believers, all six of them, that held onto the guy after drafting him in like the tenth round, are going:

As we said, those kinds of thing just don’t happen very often at this point in the season. What’s more common (though no less awesome for those involved), are the weeks where steady contributors finally ball out hard. Most people have probably spent this fantasy season satisfied with Matt Schaub, but yesterday, was more like one of these:

Same goes for all the RGIII owners, who never know what they’re getting week to week. Dude might run for a buck-twenty-five, might throw for 300, might nearly get his head knocked off by a safety, might do all of the above. But there’s a certain swagger that starting RGIII will give you. You’ll hear about the kid’s latest exploits, and it will pump. you. up:

This is surprising, mainly because some of us expected the guy to hit the Rookie Wall. Instead, he seems to be improving by the week, while some veteran players (Matt Ryan!!!) are playing more like their arms are going to fall off. This has not been Matty Ice’s best couple of weeks, but after yesterday’s 5-INT performance, we feel like this is the only way we can adequately describe him:

And who knows? Maybe his arm is tired. Maybe the strain of attempting 45 passes per game over the past month is having a negative impact. The point is that Ryan had a stinker, which is very different from the shock (and horror!) of an injury, especially in the middle of a blowout. When Willis McGahee gets hit in the knee, or, a bit later, when Rob Gronkowski breaks his forearm, this is the only appropriate reaction:

At that point, if you’re in the playoff hunt, you start thinking maybe you’re not anymore. You start thinking that maybe all the excitement and the strategizing and the lineup calibrations will have been for naught. You start to feel robbed, basically, or a much-delayed version of what everybody who took Greg Jennings feels every time there’s a fucking commercial break during the games:

But you can’t let the negativity consume you! You must focus on the good, on that roster move you made that’s brought you through in weeks past! Like Peyton Manning. Dude still looks kind of weird wearing orange, but after yet another three TD game, including one which pushed him into second place in NFL history in TD passes, is indisputably back and kicking ass for the Broncos: